Morris, William, 1834-1896 / 2008-07-25 00:00:00

EBOOK, THE ROOTS OF THE MOUNTAINS ***


Transcribed from the 1896 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David
Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk


THE ROOTS OF THE MOUNTAINS WHEREIN IS TOLD SOMEWHAT OF THE LIVES OF
THE MEN OF BURGDALE THEIR FRIENDS THEIR NEIGHBOURS THEIR FOEMEN AND
THEIR FELLOWS IN ARMS
BY WILLIAM MORRIS


Whiles carried o'er the iron road,
We hurry by some fair abode;
The garden bright amidst the hay,
The yellow wain upon the way,
The dining men, the wind that sweeps
Light locks from off the sun-sweet heaps -
The gable grey, the hoary roof,
Here now--and now so far aloof.
How sorely then we long to stay
And midst its sweetness wear the day,
And 'neath its changing shadows sit,
And feel ourselves a part of it.
Such rest, such stay, I strove to win
With these same leaves that lie herein.

CHAPTER I. OF BURGSTEAD AND ITS FOLK AND ITS NEIGHBOURS

Once upon a time amidst the mountains and hills and falling streams
of a fair land there was a town or thorp in a certain valley. This
was well-nigh encompassed by a wall of sheer cliffs; toward the East
and the great mountains they drew together till they went near to
meet, and left but a narrow path on either side of a stony stream
that came rattling down into the Dale: toward the river at that end
the hills lowered somewhat, though they still ended in sheer rocks;
but up from it, and more especially on the north side, they swelled
into great shoulders of land, then dipped a little, and rose again
into the sides of huge fells clad with pine-woods, and cleft here and
there by deep ghylls: thence again they rose higher and steeper, and
ever higher till they drew dark and naked out of the woods to meet
the snow-fields and ice-rivers of the high mountains.
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